SAN ANTONIO — A woman is furious with a San Antonio Police negotiator who repeatedly insulted her brother as he stood on the edge of an overpass Thursday.
After at least ten hours, police got the man to come down from the ledge and sent the 40-year-old to jail. Officers closed a portion of Loop 410 during the process, causing significant backups and delays.
Bystanders' videos of the incident show a negotiator repeatedly calling the man a "rat" and "pathetic" through a loudspeaker. At times, police blared their sirens to stop the 40-year-old from talking.
"You're not being a man. You're a rat," the negotiator said. "You don't care about your family? You don't care about your son... who cares about you? That's pathetic. You're pathetic."
People recording the negotiations expressed disgust with the officer's strategy for keeping the man's attention.
"They're being really, really mean to this guy," one person said.
"Great way to go, San Antonio police department," another onlooker said, sarcastically.
A San Antonio Police Department spokesperson Monday said he wouldn't discuss "any tactics used, but can say that our Negotiations Team worked tirelessly to resolve the situation in a peaceful manner."
"At its conclusion, no one was hurt and the individual was taken into custody," Sgt. Washington Moscoso added.
But the man's sister says videos of the interaction "enraged" her.
"It literally made my stomach turn," Cathy Lee Hessbrook said. "He does have mental health issues. He's been having a couple breakdowns recently."
Hessbrook doesn't know why her brother climbed onto the overpass, but said she doesn't believe he was going to jump off.
By the time she and other relatives arrived, Hessbrook says the officer's tone was soft and kind. She says she doesn't understand why it seems police started negotiations aggressively.
"It made me sick to my stomach, to be honest," she said.
At one point, the negotiator told the man he felt bad for the man's son.
"You're going to let him down like you did before," the officer said. "I don't see why he cares about you."
Mike Lawlor, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, reviewed video of the incident for KENS 5. He said the officer's language seemed inappropriate.
"It doesn't seem like taunting a guy in that situation is a great idea," he said. "But we don't know the whole story."
Lawlor said negotiators' chief responsibility is to keep a person engaged. Sometimes, he said, the best way to hold someone's attention is with harsh language.
"There were many, many moments where the police could've felt the worst outcome was imminent," Lawlor said. "In that case, you want to say something that's going to attract his attention and get him back to arguing with the cops."
Hessbrook says her brother has had a number of bad experiences with law enforcement officers during prior arrests. She believes the officers recognized the 40-year-old and mutual familiarity influenced their interaction.
"It's really hard to judge, in retrospect," Lawlor said. "It just seems like some of the language is maybe not appropriate. But if that officer felt, in the moment, that that's something that needed to be said to get the guy back grounded... that might be appropriate."
